e
in their proper light.

CHAPTER 11. THE METHOD OF THE AMMOPHILAE.

(For these Sand-wasps, cf. "The Hunting Wasps": chapters 13 and 18 to
20.--Translator's Note.)

My readers may differ in appraising the comparative value of the
trifling discoveries which entomology owes to my labours. The geologist,
the recorder of forms, will prefer the hypermetamorphosis of the
Oil-beetles (The chapter treating of this subject has not yet been
translated into English and will appear in a later volume.--Translator's
Note.), the development of the Anthrax (Cf. "The Life of the Fly":
chapter 2.--Translator's Note.) or larval dimorphism; the embryogenist,
searching into the mysteries of the egg, will have some esteem for my
enquiries into the egg-laying habits of the Osmia (Cf. "Bramble-bees and
Others": chapter 4.--Translator's Note.); the philosopher, racking his
brain over the nature of instinct, will award the palm to the operations
of the Hunting Wasps. I agree with the philosopher. Without hesitation,
I would abandon all the rest of my entomological baggage for this
discovery, which happens to be the earliest in date and that of which
I have the fondest memories. Nowhere do I find a more brilliant, more
lucid, more eloquent proof of the intuitive wisdom of instinct; nowhere
does the theory of evolution suffer a more obstinate check.

Darwin, a true judge, made no mistake about it. (Charles Robert Darwin,
born the 12th of February, 1809, at Shrewsbury, died at Down, in Kent,
on the 19th of April, 1882. For an account of certain experiments
which the author conducted on his behalf, cf. "The Mason-bees": chapter
4.--Translator's Note.) He greatly dreaded the problem of the instincts.
My first results in particular left him very anxious. If he had known
the tactics of the Hairy Ammophila, the Mantis-hunting Tachytes, the
Bee-eating Philanthus, the Calicurgi and other marauders, his anxiety,
I believe, would have ended in a frank admission that he was unable to
squeeze instinct into the mould of his formula. Alas, the philosopher of
Down quitted this world when the discussion, with experiments to support
it, had barely begun: a method superior to any argument! The little
that I had published at that time left him with still some hope of an
explanation. In his eyes, instinct was always an acquired habit. The
predatory Wasps killed their prey at first by stabbing it at random,
here and there, in the softest parts. By degrees they